December 11, 2007
I had to spank my little girl the other day. She is 11 and is having problems with mom from time to time, all kids do. But in front of me and her brother, when her mom had given her a request to do something, she started yelling at her louder than I have in a long time. So, being the good Christian dad I was, she got a spanking. She went to her room angry and hurt and I let her be. After some time had passed, as I have learned in parenting her older brothers, I went down and we talked about why she had gotten spanked and how to correct it.
Ephesians 6:1-4 KJV
(1) Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
(2) Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;)
(3) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
(4) And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
We have all told our kids that verse, to honor your parents. Usually they take it, thankfully not getting another whipping and get it over with. Not my girl, she looked up at me and said, 'how can you honor someone who is not acting honorably?' She can ask some tough questions. She knows verse 4 says for fathers not to provoke a child, I am glad she can not look up in a concordance to see that it could just as easily been translated parent or parents. So what do I tell her?
Annie, I said, the word does not make that an option, it makes it a command. Even if a parent is not acting in an honorable way it gives her no excuse not to honor him or her. I then went on to tell her a story about her big brother Gabe and what he did every night when she was 2. Gabe was in high school and was working nights. His step mom, my wife, left him a job to do each day when he got home. Annie would get every toy out of her toy box during the day (and she had a lot). Since I was working nights also I did not get to try to train her to pick them up, but my wife had made that Gabe's job. Now, as I remember, Gabe did not care for it, he went to school and went to work and when he got home he wanted to get homework done and go to sleep. And even though he felt she was acting dishonorably, he did what she told him to honor me. If I got home in time to help him I would, but he would usually have it done. When family meetings came up he would ask for help, but never got it. Gabe know it was a command and so he did it.
Annie thought about that a while, and then I let her be. She did not like the answer, or the story, but she saw that a man she respects in her life had walked it out before her and she was going to have to do the same.
Meanwhile, I meditated on some other verses from the chapter before:
Ephesians 5:22 KJV
(22) Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
Ephesians 5:25 KJV
(25) Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
You see, we also, as adults have important commands for our marriage. I am not given the option of giving up on my wife and she is not given the option of giving up on me. She can not say I will not give you any respect since you do not give me any love. And I cannot say that I will not love her if I do not get respect. We are each given a command to do. Too often we want to tell the other one that they need to do what God tells them to do, but we do not do what God has told us to do in the first place.
Take some time to study these few verses. They can and will change your walk with God.
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On a side note: Any who live outside of the Tulsa area can you keep us in your prayers. While I have not lost power, many in my area, like 16,000 or more, are without power tonight, some for the third night. We had an ice storm strike the area and it has done much damage. I will probably be weeks removing the tree limbs in my back yard, but a neighborhood teenager helped me clean out my front yard to today. Thanks you for your prayers, not for me, but for those around me.
